![]() ![]() More and more people left their villages to look for work. As the monasteries had also helped provide food for the poor, this added to the problem. The closing down of the monasteries in the 1530s created even more unemployment. When large landowners changed from arable to sheep farming, unemployment increased rapidly. Unemployment was a serious problem during this period. If any able-bodied man or woman, who did not own land or carry on a recognised profession or was a trader in merchandise, was found outside his native parish and could not account for his presence there, the local JP was to send him to the nearest market town, where he was to be tied naked to the end of a cart and beaten with a whip. A law passed in 1530 stated that people who were too old or ill to work could apply to a local JP for a licence to beg but any vagabond who begged without a licence was to be severely punished. During his reign he told Parliament to pass several acts against vagabonds (people wandering around the country looking for work). ![]() Ridley's main criticism of Henry concerns his treatment of the poor. ![]() In his book, Henry VIII (1984), the historian, Jasper Ridley, compared the crimes of Henry VIII with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin. ▼ References ▼ Spartacus Blog Was Henry VIII as bad as Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin? ![]()
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